The Sun lives in the sky. He works there in shifts with his friend the Moon. The Sun enjoys his job.

One day, the Sun was preparing to go to work as usual; brushing his teeth, combing his fiery flames, and putting on his rays.

He left his space house. It was a fairly big house, with a nice rockery made of meteorites, and a red swing that he bought for when his nieces and nephews come to visit.

Outside the gate, he bumped into the Moon, who was on his way home from work, and they had a brief chat about this and that. The Sun wished the Moon a good night, and the Moon wished the Sun a good day, and the Sun continued to his position in the sky, whistling all the merry way.

Today, I feel great, he thought, so he emailed the clouds and told them that they could take a day off.

(Although Sun is not in charge of the sky, he, along with Moon is a Sky Manager. The real boss of the sky is something of a mystery. Some people think it's a dude called God, but neither Sun or Moon have ever seen him, so if he does exist, they figure he's a bit like Charlie out of "Charlie's Angels," constantly hanging out by the pool with chicks in bikinis).

So all the clouds went off to where clouds go when they are not needed: the playground. They like to rain on each other and play silly games.

The Sun noticed that when the clouds went away, lots of people started smiling. He liked seeing people smile.

As the day went on, more and more people came out of their houses to play in the parks and the playgrounds. Lots of people went to the seaside, too.

Some people built sand castles, some ran around with kites, some played with frisbees, and many people played with balls of all colours and sizes. In the water, people swam, sailed, surfed, and water-skied. Other people just lay down, closed their eyes and went to sleep with smiles on their faces.

The Sun was happy. Although, when he started to think about it, the Sun was a bit lonely. He had no one to play with. He saw people having fun and wanted to have fun too.

He wondered if the Moon would come out to play, but when he 'phoned him, it went straight to the answer phone. The Sun put the phone down. He felt even lonelier. A tear rolled down his cheek and quickly vapourised with a little "tssssst" sound.

Then, suddenly, the Sun had a brilliant idea. I'm a Sky Manager, he thought, so I can do what I want! I'm going to go down and play with the people. The Sun was pleased with his brilliant idea, and wondered why he'd never thought of it before.

The Sun rummaged around in his rucksack, found his sunglasses, and floated down to the beach. As he got closer, he noticed lots of people moving out of the way and standing in a huge circle to watch him land. Even the waves took a few wet steps back. "Ooh," said Sun, "a welcoming committee! This will be fun."

When he landed, the Sun wanted to play straight away, so he spoke excitedly to a little boy, "Throw me the ball!"

The boy threw the brightly coloured beach ball towards the Sun, but when the Sun stuck out his hands to catch the ball, it burst. Then it melted. Then it was reduced to the tiniest of tiny atoms. Then it was gone.

The little boy's smile turned upside down. Then he opened his mouth really wide, and started wailing, "Muuuuuuummmmmmy!" The Sun scratched his head and wondered why the child was so unhappy. So he decided to go for a swim. He put on his Teflon-coated armbands, (the Sun wasn't a very good swimmer, he didn't even get his 10 metres badge), and walked towards the sea.

The waves of the sea moved further and further away. The Sun stopped walking. And so the waves stopped retreating. The Sun started walking again, and the waves moved backwards again. Lots of surfers looked at the Sun angrily, as they were suddenly hanging ten flat on their faces in wet sand.

"Hmmm, I don't think I want to swim after all," said the Sun, and dejectedly turned around and walked back to the beach, noticing that his feet fit perfectly into the big footprints made of glass in the sand. When he got back to the beach, there was no one there. The Sun felt lonely again. "Why does no one like me?" he sniffed.

What with the Sun being on the beach, the sky had turned dark. This woke the Moon up, because darkness to the Moon is like brightness to you and me. He rubbed his tired eyes, yawned, opened the curtains and sat down at the table to eat his cornflakes. As he took a mouthful, it dawned on him - which is strange, because usually things dusk on him -
"It's completely dark outside. I must have overslept," he said to himself. He looked at his watch. It was 11.30 a.m.

The Moon took a deep deep breath, exhaled slowly and let out an long "Hmmmmmmmmmm" whilst rubbing his chin. (He'd seen this in a film once. He knew that's what actors did when they wanted to look like they were thinking hard. The Moon loves films. "Beverley Hills Cop" is his favourite film of all time. Ever. Ever ever ever. If you happen to meet the Moon, get him to do his Eddie Murphy impression. It's very good.)

Moon's eyes flicked from side to side, to show he was thinking even harder. "If it's 11.30 a.m. ... and it's dark outside ... and I didn't oversleep ... and the Sun isn't in the sky..." The Moon tried to put these clues together and come up with an answer. But he couldn't because Moon isn't very brainy.

Then the doorbell rang. Moon opened the door, and there in front of him was a cloud called Sally. He quite fancied her, so he leant against the doorframe like he was Don Johnson or something.

"Quick!" said Sally. "There's a problem," God boomed, "The Sun is at the seaside!"

"Flippin' heck!" said the Moon, forgetting to be cool. Composing himself, he said, "Don't worry, babe, the Moonman will sort this out." Sally swooned a bit, and said goodbye as Moon flew off.

It was easy for the Moon to find the Sun, because he's always the brightest thing in the sky. Today, though, he was the brightest thing on Earth.